I would have agreed more, but I didn't miss the shit at all in the 4th re game. I've played their entire spectrum,2,3,2 on 64/headdesk, survivor, dead aim, cvx, and outbreak.

The problem with 4 and 5 is that the shit isn't gone it's still there in spades, but they reformulated the shit into some kind of new shit, that in the context of a re shitsandwich, tastes yummy and new. In other towns where they don't make you eat said sandwiches you would bite into a say a re control setup shitsandwich and go, this tastes crappy, but as someone who has had to eat a diet of even shittier control S sandwiches we can say yummy.

Grouchy Imp:Personally, I'd have left the sandwich and eaten the totally edible crispses. But that's a different parable.

That's what happens when you yell "Screw This!" and go play Plants Vs. Zombies instead.

That wouldn't be my go to game of choice, but the theory is sound.

Well yeah. I mean, in this parable there is only one restaurant in the town. Fortunately there isn't only one videogame developer in the world.

Still, many people get used to going to the same restaurant regardless and ordering the same shit and turkey sandwich. Even if a new one opened up in the town, they'd still eat the same sandwich at the same restaurant. Habit.

The former is from Neverwinter Nights 2 Mask of the Betrayer, and is one of it's better looking areas, the latter from Planescape Torment using the Infinity Engine.

As much as the Aurora Engine (with NWN etc.) improved on overall graphics, effects, models and the like, where it failed utterly when compared to the older Infinity Engine games was crafting well thought out and interesting environments. To put it another way, NWN/NWN2 is -filled- with identikit buildings, trees, scenery of the kind that anyone can hop into the toolset and plop down without any thought going into the procedure at all.

However, this is not completely a failure of the Aurora Engine itself, but of BioWare and Obsidian in how they used it. If you want an example of it being used well, go look at The Witcher and compare it to Neverwinter Nights 2. But even then, the older Infinity Engine games still look like works of art in comparison in my opinion, with the attention to detail fairly obvious in every loving crafted area.

Truthfully though I'm one of those people who will say that objectively "Resident Evil 4" and "Resident Evil 5" were good games (excepting Sheva's AI in 5). The problem is that they were bad Survival Horror games. The "shit" in this case bing most of what defined the Survival Horror genere, which appealed to a very specific group of people, by removing it you wound up with a campy horror third person shooter game, which admittedly appeals to more people than "Survival Horror" ever did.

One of the problems I have with franchises today is that the reluctance to launch new franchises has lead to the mutilation of long-standing series. People slapping the name of, and a sequel number to, games that have absolutly nothing to do with a series except perhaps using some of the same characters and referances to the setting. Resident Evil 4 was an example of this, sure it involved Leon, but at the same time it didn't use "real" Zombies as per the previous games, there was little need for ammo conservation, and rather than puzzles and trying to work out ways to avoid monsters the entire game was largely based around shooting your way through everything (for which there is plenty of ammo, in previous games there simply wasn't enough bang-bang at various points in the game to make this a viable solution). They literally put you into closed arenas like villages and such and won't let you progress until you kill every bloody thing there.

None of that makes it a bad game, but it does mean it's not a "Resident Evil" game. It also means that fans of the series do have a right to complain about it. I don't think in cases like this it's general internet "moan about everything".

See, in my mind it's one of those cases where the game should have been launched as an entirely new IP, rather than being made as a "sequel"/Chapter to the Resident Evil franchise.

Incidently my logic also means that I think keeping franchises alive indefinatly is a bad idea, even if they are making money. There is a point at which you've really done everything that can be done well with a given property, at which point it's time to put the property to rest. Even if the property is successful and massive bank can be made by literally pooping out a sequel, in the long term even more money could be made by taking a "keep them wanting more" attitude and bringing the franchise back at a later date when more GOOD ideas for the same material might transpire, or a reboot/new version might be possible.

The gameplay might be good, but really why did say "Resident Evil 4" need the Resident Evil label? I mean the game is set in europe, doesn't involve zombies, and has little or no relevence to "Racoon City" or much of the lore in the universe except what was tacked on sloppily to justify it's sequelhood. Why not make the game a new title other than marketing?

Such are my thoughts.

BTW> For the guy who said he would get probation for making a similar analogy, my experience has shown that it probably wouldn't happen, providing there was some point to what you were saying rather than just trying to be disgusting for the sake of being disgusting. A lot of similar things have been said, and since it's not deliberatly insulting towards anyone in paticular I doubt it would be an issue.

Content wise there was probably worse said in a recent thread about making "unfounded assumptions about popular video game characters" some of which were... interesting, and painful as a lot of them seem like they would probably be true which is what made most of it funny. I think that's the thread where we saw the posting of a picture of a guy farting a stream of fire as well... :)

XT inc:I would have agreed more, but I didn't miss the shit at all in the 4th re game. I've played their entire spectrum,2,3,2 on 64/headdesk, survivor, dead aim, cvx, and outbreak.

The problem with 4 and 5 is that the shit isn't gone it's still there in spades, but they reformulated the shit into some kind of new shit, that in the context of a re shitsandwich, tastes yummy and new. In other towns where they don't make you eat said sandwiches you would bite into a say a re control setup shitsandwich and go, this tastes crappy, but as someone who has had to eat a diet of even shittier control S sandwiches we can say yummy.

The shit I missed was the puzzles. I remember staying up all night at a fried's place and we tried to one shot RE a few times and I was always looking for the next puzzle. I could put together the Tower of Hanoi before I knew what it was, however I couldn't walk down a straight hallway in that game.

It really shocked me at first how much hate RE4 got from fans. "Oh never mind the the ridiculously improved controls, interface, puzzles, and pacing, THEY RUINED TEH STORY AND MAED IT IN2 A SHOOTER!"

"Ruined the story"? Yeah, the story was already ruined the by the time RE3 was released and before that it was cheesier than a Voltron episode draped in fondue. While not great or original, RE4's story was very enjoyable to me. On accounts that it had practically nothing to do with the original (bat shit insane) cannon and it went about things deliberately self aware. With the added bonuses of likable protagonists, some funny lines of dialog, and a coherent and easy to follow plot and you got yourself a very well executed story.

However, one thing I'll disagree with is the huge praise RE4 gets for its horror. Its pretty scary around the beginning, but once you find the shotgun and some grenades, then it becomes an extremely weird shooter. That didn't bother me (were still some parts that creeped the shit outa me), it was still fun as hell at least! But when people say "past RE game were scarier and more atmospheric", that's just not true. Yeah you can say how RE pioneered the horror genre, but all the games pretty much relied on jump out scares and surprise attacks as opposed to true psychological endurance as practiced by Silent Hill 2 and Condemned: Criminal Origins. Besides, a game/movie/book/whatever can be as atmospheric as possible, but if it has a completely retarded and convoluted story and characters you want to flog every time they open their mouths, then everything just falls apart because we can't connect with situation due to it's inconsistencies and lack of any logic.

The former is from Neverwinter Nights 2 Mask of the Betrayer, and is one of it's better looking areas, the latter from Planescape Torment using the Infinity Engine.

As much as the Aurora Engine (with NWN etc.) improved on overall graphics, effects, models and the like, where it failed utterly when compared to the older Infinity Engine games was crafting well thought out and interesting environments. To put it another way, NWN/NWN2 is -filled- with identikit buildings, trees, scenery of the kind that anyone can hop into the toolset and plop down without any thought going into the procedure at all.

However, this is not completely a failure of the Aurora Engine itself, but of BioWare and Obsidian in how they used it. If you want an example of it being used well, go look at The Witcher and compare it to Neverwinter Nights 2. But even then, the older Infinity Engine games still look like works of art in comparison in my opinion, with the attention to detail fairly obvious in every loving crafted area.

Yeah I love the Infinity engine, and I definitely agree that the lack of true 3d meant any developers who used it had to put extra attention into the design to make it look good. BG2 and TOB look absolutely stunning in HD because of that. Actually now I think about the Infinity engine was a bad comparison to this parable because there was nothing shit about it in the first place! Just mild awkwardnesses that are totally made up for by the adaptability and overall great design of the engine. Now please excuse me while I search for an infinity SDK hehe

RE4 was the best overall game but it wasn't nearly as survival horrorific as the older games. The ammo was basically unlimited and other than the stupid first town and maybe the locked in the house fight there was very little desperation.